Bullyproof: A Teacher's Guide on Teasing and Bullying for Use with Fourth and Fifth Grade Students

The teacher's guide contains eleven sequential lessons. Class discussions, role plays, case studies, writing exercises, reading assignments, art activities, and nightly homework combine to give students the opportunity to explore and determine the fine distinctions between "teasing" and "bullying." Children gain a conceptual framework and a common vocabulary that allows them to find their own links between teasing and bullying and, eventually, sexual harassment. A three-year evaluation, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided independent research into the curriculum's effectiveness with fifth grade students and their teachers in Austin, Texas. Results from the evaluation study showed that students in the intervention schools (those that used Bullyproof) as compared with the control schools (those that did not use Bullyproof) showed greater accuracy over time in identifying behaviors that constituted sexual harassment. In addition, the intervention may have influenced girls' attitudes about bullies. Moreover, the use of Bullyproof as an intervention tool was demonstrated to be successful in increasing student and staff knowledge about sexual harassment. This evaluation study was conducted by SafePlace, a combined sexual assault/domestic violence center, The Austin, TX Independent School District, and the University of Texas, School of Social Work. Articles about the evaluation outcomes can be found in Journal of Interpersonal Violence (November 2003 issue, vol 18, #11, pp. 1347-1360), and in two book chapters published in 2004, both co-authored by Barri Rosenbluth, Daniel Whitaker, Ellen Sanchez and Linda Anne Valle. Their chapters can be found Bullying in American A Social-Ecological Perspective on Prevention and Intervention, edited by Dorothy Espelage & Susan Swearer, (pp. 327-350); and Bullying in How successful can interventions be? edited by Peter K. Smith, Debra Pepler and Ken Rigby (pp. 211-250).